Poles continue to increase their medical spending pace, up to PLN 35.5 billion in 2013 on its way to PLN 37 billion in 2014 and PLN 39 billion in 2015, forecasts show.

Some 2.5 million Poles now have additional health insurance or service coverage, of which 754,000 pay out of their own pockets.

Poles have increasingly demanded private medical coverage as a part of employment packages, which put recent growth rates above the market's ability to handle new patients, the daily Gazeta Wyborcza wrote.

Growth rates in such memberships are now down below 10%, but the lines at the private medical centers are long and membership rates are rising quickly, some as much as 50%, the daily reported.